1. Field
One or more embodiments of the present invention relate to an upper limb rehabilitation robot for meal assistance of the elderly and the weak or rehabilitation patients who have relatively weak muscular strength or for active meal rehabilitation training during which a movement intention of a person is reflected, and a method of controlling the rehabilitation robot.
In detail, a sensing member, to which the upper limbs of a user are fixed, is mounted on a multi-joint robot, and motion of the upper limbs is sensed by using the sensing member to generate a control signal by using a motion control unit based on the sensed motion.
The present invention relates to an upper limb rehabilitation robot for meal assistance or meal rehabilitation training, wherein the upper limb is driven by using the multi-joint robot according to the generated control signal, and the multi-joint robot guides movement of the upper limbs and provides assistance force to the upper limbs so that the user may have meal properly.
2. Description of the Related Art
The life expectancy of humans is increasing each year, and countries in the world including Korea are rapidly becoming aging societies.
As the aging is processing worldwide, the silver industries are actively developed in the fields of supporting life, living, living activity, etc. and techniques needed therefore such as techniques for supporting replacing of a vital function, cure, self-support, and robot techniques for supporting daily life are also vigorously researched.
In particular, the elderly people have weakened muscle strength and are thus often not able to move by themselves and have restrictions in movement.
For the elderly people, particularly, due to the lacking muscle strength or a reduction in the muscle strength, they are restricted in many ways in terms of upper limb movement compared to normal people.
Thus, as a field in the silver industries, the need for a strength-supporting instrument to supplement and assist the muscle strength of the elderly and the weak has arisen.
However, the need for such a strength-supporting instrument is not only limited to the elderly and the weak.
A patient who has weak muscle strength due to various diseases, accident or other reasons would also need such a strength-supporting instrument. Also, rehabilitation patients who have difficulty in moving freely by one's own strength may also need the strength-supporting instrument for strength supplement or strength training.
Against this backdrop, various solutions have been suggested; for example, KR 10-1237245 (published on 18 Feb. 2013) discloses a meal assistance robot comprising a picking arm including a gripper that picks up food placed on a food tray; a feeding arm including a spoon on which the food picked up by the picking arm is placed and taking the spoon to the mouth of a user; a manipulation unit via which the user directs motion of the picking arm and the feeding arm; a control unit that is electrically connected to the picking arm, the feeding arm, and the manipulation unit to adjust motion of the picking arm and the feeding arm according to a command of the manipulation unit, wherein the manipulation unit is formed of a touch pad type liquid crystal display to display the shape of the food tray so that the picking arm and the feeding arm may be automatically manipulated to put food into the mouth of the user just by touching a position of the food tray on which the food the user wishes to eat is included.
However, according to the conventional art described above, simple and repetitive meal assistance or meal rehabilitation training is conducted passively by an operation program input by a robot programmer. Thus, no other task than having meal may be performed, and moreover, as physical characteristics of a user (e.g., a physique, a position of the mouth, or a degree of paralysis) are not considered, a considerable amount of inconvenience is caused to the user.
In addition, it is impossible to conduct the most appropriate rehabilitation motion program for the current physical state of individual patients.
Also, there is no measure against a malfunction of the robot, and thus a danger of safety accidents exists.